Art: A cause celeb

How did we end up with Celebrity Love Island? It all started with Joshua Reynolds, says Waldemar Januszczak

There has been a welcome switch in exhibition-making in recent years from the accumulation and display of splendid things to a more inventive approach. Shows have become less obvious. I suppose it has come about because the accumulation and display of splendid things has, in so many instances, been done. The era of the blockbuster has already attempted most of the blockbusters. So our museums have had to think laterally. Turner Whistler Monet was a wildly successful example of joining up three bits of different blockbusters to form a new whole. Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity is an example of another approach. Instead of coming at your blockbuster head-on, you come in from the side.

Twenty years ago, the Royal Academy put together the Reynolds show to beat all Reynolds shows (we are talking size here, of course, not revelation), and Tate Britain could hardly repeat the effect. So